About Unit 5

Essential Question: To what extent has the evolving nature of borders and migration transformed communities within North America?

Unit 5: Diaspora, Borders, and Migration invites students to examine how the movement of people—whether forced or voluntary—has shaped ideas of identity, belonging, and opportunity in the United States. Using the lens of continuity and change, students investigate why people migrated, how laws and borders defined who belonged, and how communities responded to both inclusion and exclusion. Students begin by exploring the long history of migration to America, analyzing how different groups’ motivations and experiences revealed tensions between national ideals and realities. They then study how legal constructions of race, especially “whiteness,” shaped access to citizenship and rights. In the following topics, students examine how expulsion, confinement, and movement reshaped communities and challenged definitions of who could claim space in the nation. The unit concludes with an examination of modern immigration and refugee experiences, where students consider how current policies and debates reveal competing visions of who America is and who it wants to be.
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